Building quantitative systems pharmacology models from scratch: Filling in the gaps

Abstract

While working for a commercial pioneer in the quantitative systems pharmacology space, a common refrain was that biologist don't take the right data when it comes to building mechanistic mathematical models of disease. Yet, the company was reluctant to publish primary research articles showing how existing data are used and what kind of data are needed. Over time, this blanket critique of biologists, to me, seemed a bit hypocritical. On the flip-side, a common critique levied by biologists about mathematical models is that they just reproduce that which we already know. So in re-entering academia with a single ticket to play at West Virginia University, I wanted to change that narrative or simply try not to be a hypocrite. Here, I will discuss our approach for using mechanistic mathematical models to better understand complex, dynamical systems that one encounters in biology and for filling in some of the gaps in our understanding of these systems in the context of disease biology.